I baked a turkey today, with stuffing, mashed red potatoes, green beans, and cranberry sauce.  It was pretty good, but I don't like all the mess afterward.  Jeff and the girls did the dishes and that was nice.  I really want to try making pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting, but I ran out of energy.  I've never made them and new recipes are always a gamble.

I tried a new recipe earlier in the week and it was awful.  It was for Cream of Wheat cookies, which I added dried blueberries to.  The recipe didn't call for baking soda or baking powder and I was a little nervous, but I looked at a few other recipes (all of these were online) and they didn't either, so I thought maybe it would be okay.  It wasn't!  After the first dozen were baked and cooled, I didn't even bother to bake the rest (a sad waste of ingredients!) because it was obvious I had a pan full of hockey pucks.  The flavor was okay, but a little different.  The texture was not great.  I won't be trying that again, even with baking powder.  I'll just stick with Cream of Wheat cereal for breakfast.

Magen is going on an overnight trip with her school choir tomorrow (leaving the house at 5:15am!).  So we had to make a "sack lunch" run to the grocery store.  We are getting very close to the end of the year and Magen and Amber are busy trying to catch up on seminary.  They have been doing home study most of the year because they have a hard time getting up early.  That means they have a short lesson to work on, reading a few scriptures and answering questions.  They've done quite a bit, but haven't quite kept up so now they are rushing to finish in time.  I don't blame them for doing the home study version.  Getting up early has always been really hard for me.  Some people really are morning people and feel good (or at least human) in the mornig, but I'm not one of them.

I'm going visiting teaching tomorrow and Wednesday.  This month its my turn to give the lesson.  Last month I made the appointments.  I trade off with my partner each month.  I'll read through my notes from April general conference and share some things from the prophet's message.  Last night I came up to get in bed and Michann was there in my bed reading her scriptures.  It is so great to see her enjoying the scriptures and talking about them with me.  I got in bed next to her and read the Book of Mormon for a while.  It was so nice.  I hope Magen and Amber will grow to appreciate and love the scriptures.  I need to ask them if they are learning and benefitting from their home study efforts, or just doing it to get it done.  They don't typically want to talk about the gospel.  Most of my attempts result in eye-rolling, but once in a while they will talk about things with me.  I wish I was better at recognizing teaching moments, and teaching more effectively.  I'm a lot better in formal teaching roles.  But I will keep trying to get better at it.

I do recognize I have another weakness...writing "run-on" paragraphs!

I had my Housing Hope board meeting today.  I rushed home to get the car to Michann for work, and passed Jeff and Michann heading the other way.  Michann couldn't get in touch with me so she was afraid I wouldn't get home in time, and so she called Jeff from work to come and take her to work during his lunch hour.  And she couldn't reach me because Magen's phone had broken and I had let her take mine to school.  Oh well!  It worked out in the end, but having a cell phone does come in handy at times. 

Housing Hope is developing a new program which will offer additional help to our residents to prepare and train for employment, pursue employment related educational opportunities, and work in volunteer and/or employment positions which have added support.  (Many employers don't understand the special needs and gap areas that these people often have, so the work experience is a negative one.  Housing Hope is working carefully to alleviate this problem by providing training and support to employers who are interested in partnering with us in this program.)  Usually, homeless/low-income residents are lacking in both soft and hard skills which are necessary to get any job, but especially to get the jobs that will provide a living wage.  I'm very excited about this new program.  It is in the beginning stages, but already showing better than expected outcomes for our residents.  This is an important way to address one of the real causes of homelessness.  There are often many other factors, but this is a big one.

Saturday Michann and I both joined a Housing Hope board member work party (service project).  When I first asked Michann if she would go with me, she said sure.  I was a little surprised she was so willing, but then she said something and I realized she thought "work party" meant "office party".  :)  But she still said she'd go with me and she probably worked harder than I did.  Along with about 9 other board members, we spread a very large pile of beauty bark in the proper places.  Then as we got ready to go we found that Michann had accidentally locked the keys in the trunk!  But thankfully all was not lost... we called the insurance company and they sent a locksmith to save us.  While we waited we thought we should go get an ice cream cone at Baskin Robbins which was conveniently next door, and then we remembered our purses were in the trunk!  But one of the guys offered to loan us some money, so we were set.  I had an old favorite that I hadn't had in years, Burgundy Cherry, yummm.

On the way home we picked up Amber from the church.  She had attended a youth activity to perform baptisms at the temple.  And then we stopped at the local nursery to pick up a tomato plant for my new "Topsy Turvy" upside down tomato plant hanger.  It's supposed to be this great new way to grow tomatoes, and I hope it works.  I just need Jeff to build a strong enough frame to hang the planter from (needs to hold 75 lbs.)  I guess it holds a lot of dirt!  The yield is supposed to be much higher, and you don't have to stake or weed the plant.  But you do need to water every day.  I'm not very good at remembering to water, so I'll have to devise a plan to make sure I don't forget.  I'm so hopeful that the tomatoes will do well that way.  If they do I'll buy one or two more for next year!